


Glücklich ist, Wer Vergisst!

by MooseFeels



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Midsummer Night's Dream, adjacent to all these things, fairy tale, regency adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: Yuuri doesn't belong at the ball; but that's fine. It's nice outside, and the stranger is even nicer.





	1. Chapter 1

Azaleas grow in the midnight garden, their paper-thin heads hanging heavy with dew. Their blooms are soft and cooling on Yuuri’s drunken, overheated fingertips, cool and lovely where he brings them to rest on his cheeks, on his face.

“You should be careful,” someone says, from nearby. “They’re very poisonous.”

Yuuri turns around, and someone stands there-- tall and strange.

“Do I know you?” Yuuri asks, his voice sounding too loud, even with the crush of the party echoing behind him. The sound ekes out from the gaps in the glass french doors. There’s no one else out here, though, which seems a pity. All of the flowers are in bloom and the air is cool and there’s a kind of cool, blue light, reflected off the lake that comes in close to the balcony, the fountain that occupies the garden, the glass of the windows along the palace.

The stranger crooks his head, and a wide ribbon of silvery hair falls into his face, stopped by his long, thin nose. All of his features are sort of like that, graceful and thin and sharp and so beautiful. There’s a rhythm, to him, something that floats.

“You seem familiar,” Yuuri says, hoping he can somehow excuse himself. Even this drunk, he can sense his grave error. “I hope you do. You’re very beautiful.”

The stranger’s mouth spreads slowly, beautifully, into a graceful smile. “You are a flatterer,” he says, his voice beautiful, if strangely accented. “Be careful, of the azaleas, flatterer, they are very poisonous.”

Yuuri shakes his head. It’s not far to travel, across the paving, to be near to where the stranger stands, just beside the curving branches of a blossoming almond tree. Yuuri’s footsteps are loud, the bottom of his dancing shoes snapping sharply on the stone surface.

“Flattery?” He says. “No-- no, never. I could never-- I could never.”

Yuuri remembers Christophe’s green eyes sparkling--  _ our Yuuri doesn’t have an ounce of guile in his body, be nice. _

The stranger is oddly dressed. They have a headdress, one that Yuuri can’t quite place. It drips with flowers, with ribbons, with light, somehow. There are light, downy feather strung into it, and snippets of lace. It looks so lovely to hold, looks so lovely settled above the stranger’s tall, graceful brow, at the top of his long, strong body.

“It’s a crown,” the stranger says.

Yuuri feels his eyes settle from the stranger’s head to his eyes. They are clear, bright blue. Lighter than lapis and truer than forget-me-nots.

“Not a headdress,” the stranger says. “A crown.”

Yuuri smiles. “Are you a prince?” He asks.

The stranger nods. “I am,” he says.

Yuuri bows, low and automatically, feeling the blood rush to his head at the action.

“Forgive me my impropriety, your highness,” Yuuri says. “I am Katsuki Yuuri, your humble servant.”

The stranger laughs. This prince, he laughs. It is chimes.

“I think you are no one’s servant,” the prince says.

Yuuri rises slowly. “I am commonly born, your highness,” he answers. “I am everyone’s servant.”

Maybe this isn’t entirely fair, but it is true. He stands before this prince in borrowed finery, in a stolen moment at a party he was not himself invited to, only tagged along to. He is only here because Mme. Baranovskaya did not want her ward to come unaccompanied, and here Yuuri is, not accompanying him. Yuuri is only here because Mme. Okukawa saw something of the turn of his feet worthy to mention to her own patron, from so long ago.

But Yuuri will never be as effortless or worthy as the glittering, graceful figures turning long, looping waltzes inside. Yuuri is a servant, under a different name, under a different obligation. Not of the nobility but too close to them to be treated among the low and trusted as them.

“That seems a pity,” the Prince says. The way there is the barest flush over his pale cheeks makes Yuuri think of ripening of peaches. “But if you are to be my servant, I think I might ask you to come deeper into the wood with me. Mayhap, to dance?”

“I think you might find I am excellent dancer, your highness,” Yuuri answers. “I think you might find yourself pleased, with your servant.”

The prince laughs, again. “Maybe not a flatterer, then, but very bold,” he says.

Yuuri follows him, past the almond tree and a little ways down, further away from the music and into a grove, lit by the strange blue light of the stars, of the moon, of the lake.

Maybe Yuuri’s hands are unsure, as they wrap over his waist, which feels strong and densely muscled under Yuuri’s hands. Maybe Yuuri feels the fluttering of anxiety underneath the haze of champagne, that the prince will feel the calluses on his hands still from the bathhouse, from mending, from scrubbing, from washing.

But the prince is beautiful, and the garment he wears is a strange color, a shifting yellow from butter to sweet, gracious orange, through to torrid pink. It leaves his muscular arms exposed and the broad, strong planes of his chest open to the air.

“You are very beautiful, your highness,” Yuuri whispers.

They step quietly into the swaying, gliding rhythms of a waltz, moving quickly from the box and into a frictionless, smooth kind of circling.

“Oh, Katsuki Yuuri, you are too kind to me by far,” he answers.

“Maybe,” Yuuri says, he can almost imagine the music they are meant to be hearing, to suit and fall into the steps they weave between them.

_ You are too kind to my ward _ , he can hear Mme. Baranovskaya say in her low, serious voice.  _ Do not let him walk on you in such a way, Mr. Katsuki. _

“Maybe, but my kindness does not preclude my honesty, your highness,” Yuuri says.

He wishes he had more champagne.

The prince is taller than he is, but is not afraid to be lead, guided, along the grove and deeper and further, until the gliding between them ceases and Yuuri finds himself caught, mesmerized, by something in the prince’s gaze.

“You are so familiar,” Yuuri whispers.

“I am hard to remember,” the prince answers. “All of us are; a cheap trick.”

“I want to remember,” Yuuri says. “Would you let me?”

Yuuri realizes he doesn’t know where he is. The prince leads him to a sort of stone bench and they sit, facing each other.

The prince, Yuuri realizes, is not wearing shoes.

“Are you cold?” Yuuri asks. He already begins to tug his evening jacket from his shoulders. Even if the prince is much too broad across his shoulders to fit into his jacket, but the idea that he might be cold twists something in Yuuri’s gut.

“Not right now,” the prince says. “Not with you, Mr. Katsuki.”

“Yuuri,” Yuuri says. “Just Yuuri. There are neither  _ misters _ nor  _ masters _ in my blood.”

“Your name,” the prince says. “Freely given.”

Yuuri looks down at his hands, rough.

“It’s all I have to give,” he says.

Not even his clothes are his own.

The knife is very small, silvery. The prince pulls it from somewhere in the folds of his garment and with deft fingers cuts a lock of his long, shining, silvery hair.

He takes Yuuri’s hand carefully, and braids the lock into itself, to circle Yuuri’s wrist fully.

And somehow, maybe Yuuri imagines it, the lock is metal, carved and cut into graceful filigree, decorated with azaleas and almond blossoms.

Maybe it was always this, but it seems too fantastic, too extraordinary to not be an effect of the champagne.

“Yuuri,” the prince says, his voice so beautiful. “If I came back to you--“

“Stay,” Yuuri says. “Just stay.”

His grasp is so firm, on Yuuri’s hand.

Yuuri can’t quite read the expression in his eyes.

“None of you have ever asked me to stay,” he says. “Of all the balls and fetes and parties. None of you have ever asked me to stay. Asked me for-- for so many other things.”

“Stay,” Yuuri says. “Please.”

“I will come back, for you,” he says. “I promise you.”

Something on the circled metal about Yuuri’s wrist glitters, as if suddenly set with a precious stone.

“Your highness,” Yuuri breathes.

And the Prince surges into Yuuri’s space, cradles his face in his long, slim-fingered hands, his blue eyes so overwhelming, so beautiful, so clear.

And he says something, Yuuri thinks. Something important, something beautiful.

But when he wakes up in the morning, groggy with sleep and fuzzy from champagne, sore from sleeping on a stone bench and damp with dew, he’s not sure any of it really happened.

He blinks, overwhelmed in the sudden daylight.

And looks at his wrist, where a metal bracelet of azaleas and almond blooms and glittering, brilliant blue sapphires encloses his wrist.

And traced over the top of it, in a smooth, lovely script, is simply the name  _ Viktor _ . 


	2. Chapter 2

Viktor likes to watch their parties, even if they will do nothing but break his heart. It has been broken so many times before, at this point, it is a wonder that there is anything left of him that remains to be hurt. Anything left of him that could be tender enough, new enough, fragile enough that yet another blow could knock it. 

Viktor, though, survives to once again open himself to their dancing, their follies, their cool flatteries and warm smiles. Their charms and lies that come all too easily. 

Viktor has always been overwhelmed by that unique penchant for lying that comes from men. They lie as easily as they breathe. 

Viktor cannot lie, though. He can spin gold from the chaff parted from the grain. He can carve carriage suited to carry the loveliest of princesses from the coarse exterior of a gnarled peach pit. He weave the starlight itself into a mantle small enough to be pulled through a silver wedding ring, can dance the dance that brings the trees back to animation in the springtime, raise the buds from their slumber in the winter, set to motion every snowflake and wind of winter. All these wonders and more, Viktor can do, but he cannot lie. 

Perhaps this is why he is so easily hurt by them. Perhaps this is why again he finds himself brought to the very border betwixt his own domain and the domain of men to stare, lonesome, at their ball. At their turnings and laughing; at the glow and glitter of golden candlelight, so different from the cold blue light reflected from the water. 

Viktor stays hidden, casts himself into the shadow  _ just _ so. 

He’s not sure how long he stands there, in the darkness, when someone slips out through the doors and onto the terrace. He’s young (most men are, compared to Viktor), something telegraphed in his round features and smooth skin and wide, lovely eyes. His hair is dark, pushed away from his face, up out of his eyes. He dresses like most of the men in the hall do, in something dark and closely fitted but for the pale, cream colored shirt that rises high up his neck, tied off crisply by a bow of dark material. 

He weaves a little as he walks over to the azalea bushes, opposite to Viktor. Viktor can just barely spy how his hands and fingers drift and caress over their paper-thin heads, hanging heavy with the evening dew. 

“You should be careful,” Viktor says. “They are very poisonous.”

The stranger’s hand lifts away from the bush and he turns and looks, to where Viktor stands, and he sees him. 

His brown eyes grow bright and beautiful, looking at Viktor. There’s something playful in his voice, at how his mouth curves around the question-- “Do I know you?” 

There’s a moment, the stranger looking at Viktor a little closer, before color rises in his cheeks so beautifully-- like the warming of branches in the springtime. “You seem familiar,” he explains, his voice softening. “I hope you do. You’re very beautiful.”

Viktor smiles. Resists the compelling, dual urges to run away and roll his eyes. “You are a flatterer,” he says. “Be careful, of the azaleas, flatterer, they are very poisonous.”

And the man, he shakes his head and he moves like he is already dancing, across the paving, away from the party, closer to Viktor. Concern carves a vertical furrow between his dark brows. 

“No, I could never,” he says, shaking his head more. He says it so earnestly, as if somehow his inability to  _ lie _ is a personal failing. 

Viktor is fascinated, and he is glad that this stranger come ever closer to him, to look at him, to be near to him. This man, he looks at Viktor with an expression of  _ wonder _ played across his face, and his eyes are drawn unstoppably up to Viktor’s crown. 

He asks if Viktor is a prince. Viktor knows he would not understand the intricacies of his domain, of what he rules and all that signifies. But he did not ask him this; he asked him if he was a prince.

And then, declares himself Viktor’s  _ humble servant. _

Viktor has never had servants. He has neither wanted nor needed them; he has been more than capable of doing his own bidding. But he seems so strangely, wonderfully insistent on this. 

_ I am commonly born _ . Viktor runs the sentence over and over through his head. All men are commonly born; it is part of what defines them against those born of Viktor’s court. 

“Tis a pity,” Viktor tells him. “But if you are to be my servant, might I ask you to come deeper, into the wood? Mayhap to dance?”

This man, his color deepens ever so subtly. He looks so vivid, before Viktor, blossoming into all the colors the garden hides in the night. His smile spreads confident and true over his face, and he says, “I think you might find I am an excellent dancer, your highness. I think you might find yourself pleased with your servant.”

It’s the most curious, wonderful thing, how he follows Viktor into his grove of silvery birches and ignores the wonders and stars of the night to look simply at Viktor. 

He stands so tall and straight and beautiful as he carefully lays his hands on Viktor’s waist, into his hand. Viktor feels the space between his shoulders, strong. 

Viktor knows magic; this is not magic. 

This is better.

The gliding leaves something flying and fluttering in his chest; the turning and spinning like laughter. Slowly at first and then faster. It feels as unstoppable and natural as the turning of the seasons. It feels like a part of Viktor, this dancing. A part of him that was always there, even if he hadn’t known. 

He has lost no breath at all when he leans close to Viktor’s ear to whisper, “You are very beautiful, your highness.” 

So many men have told Viktor this, but he thinks maybe this man may be the first to believe it. 

“You are so familiar,” he says, again, sounded bewildered. 

“A cheap trick, we do,” Viktor answers. It’s true. Most pay no mind to what they have always, already, seen. “We are familiar but hard to remember.”

“You are the most curious man I have ever met,” Viktor says. “Extraordinary.”

“I’m no one,” he says. “If you went to the ball, there’s Christophe and Yuri and oh, of course dear Phichit and-- well, all of them are so much more remarkable than me.”

“Ask me for something,” Viktor says, impulsively. “Anything.”

He licks his lips, his red tongue peeking out to run along his pink lips. 

_ Ask me for sex, _ Viktor thinks.  _ Ask me for power, ask for my humiliation, ask for my servitude, ask me for anything. Prove me wrong. Prove once and for all how foolish I am. Break my heart so no one else may break it again.  _

“I want to remember you,” he says. “You said it’s hard to remember you. I want to never forget.”

Viktor gasps. He doesn’t mean to. It overwhelms him. 

He looks at him quizzically for a moment before his eyes fall to Viktor tunic, one Viktor made himself from all the shifting colors of a summer’s sunset. 

“Are you cold?” he asks, and he moves to take off his jacket, dark and fitted. 

“No,” Viktor answers. “No, not with you, sir.”

His brown eyes slide away and shame flickers over his features. “Yuuri,” he says, his voice precious when held between him and Viktor. “Just Yuuri.”

He must not know, this gift he gives Viktor. This  _ power _ he gives him, that he entrusts with Viktor. 

Remembering him is hardly a gift at all. Viktor would have given it to him anyway. 

It is hardly any effort at all to weave for him a token, a thing of Viktor’s self. Though the gesture of it may be lost on him, Viktor would not have the power between them held unequally.

Viktor wraps this of himself around Yuuri’s wrist easily, and Yuuri looks at it with reverence. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says. The name a  _ treasure. _ “If I came back for you--”

“Stay,” he interrupts, his voice suddenly loud and urgent. “Please. Please stay.”

His voice is softer when he murmurs, “Your highness.”

Viktor is helpless. 

Close enough that not even the trees could hear him, Viktor pulls Yuuri in close to him and whispers, softly, “If ever you need me, Yuuri, you need only call my name.”

Viktor watches as slowly the  _ sleeping _ he cast into his words takes Yuuri, makes his eyelids and lashes fall heavy. Viktor lays him carefully, dreaming, onto the stone bed. Charms easily the flower to bloom sweetly about him, the moonlight to cast warmly over him, the night air to sing to him softly. Viktor writes carefully upon the token his own name; writes in the secret language between them, discernible only to his eyes and to Yuuri’s. 

In the dawning, the grove is less hidden. Viktor, more easily witnessed by eyes he would want to be invisible to, pulls himself away into his own domain. 

He runs, across the vale and to the broad tree where he rests. Viktor throws himself into the moss, and he closes his eyes, and he listens, and he waits. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter as @moosefeels come Bug me


End file.
